I teach English at a local college, and I really enjoy it. I love expanding minds and I love giving students the opportunity to either learn to love writing and reading, or at least learn to respect it and not hate it.

Here is the fun stuff. Every semester I have student drop out the first day because I "scare" them and make the class seem too hard. On the very first day I go over the syllabus with them and then have them write two paragraphs about themselves, stand up, and read it out loud. This has a purpose but most students hate it and some become afraid because they worry about how much talking in class they have to do. I do require a lot of student participation, if a student doesn't participate I worry they are not learning or that they might be falling through the cracks. Honestly the class is not as hard as it seems at first. And I am not as scary.

I started the class with 25 students, which is the max. Just before class started I was down by two. After the first day of class I am down two more. This is not counting the three who did not show up for the first day. So already, I've gone from 25 to possibly 18 depending on if the three who missed the first day come on the second. Oh my, I just mathed the heck out of that!

The class I am teaching is required, so I do wonder what other classes are like. Maybe I am a hard teacher. Maybe I do ask a lot out of a 100 class. I don't feel like I do, but maybe I love English so much I don't know what is hard anymore!

Besides all of this, I love teaching. It is a lot of work, and I don't think there is a teacher out there who is paid enough for the work they do. If you don't love it, you won't enjoy it. I don't teach for the money (although getting paid is nice), I teach because I want to share what I love with others!

This is the year I plan to finish my zombie series, which I have to admit is bittersweet. Does any writer really like to leave characters they have spent years with behind? In my case most of my characters will not make it to the end of the series, but this shouldn't come as any surprise to anyone who has read the books. I kill a lot of people, and main characters are not safe. On to the next decision. I will have to figure out what to write about next. Do I continue with zombies? Do I find some other monster to write about? Do I just throw in the towel and not write anything, and hope I don't land myself in an asylum because the voices in my head have driven to me into insanity? I think there isn't really an answer to what's next yet, except I don't think not writing is a real obvious answer.

Thus far I am signed up to do two author/comic conventions in the Alabama area. One is at the Birmingham library on February 20th and the other is in Huntsville on March 19th. I plan on trying to find places to organize signings for myself and other authors, because we need all the marketing and face-to-face meetings that we can can get. I look forward to finding more events and getting out there, not only for my novels but also for the crafty/artistic stuff I do. If anyone is interested in that check out my store on etsy called LittleBitOZombie.

I am once again teaching English at a local community college, and I really enjoy it. I like helping other people learn to enjoy the written word and language. Plus if I can get people to like writing, maybe I can get them to like reading, and maybe I can pass of my love and make it theirs.

For life I plan on working on being happy with everything the way it is. I need to focus more on what I have and on the way things are going so that I can be happier with myself. I realized this last year that I am very hard on myself, but who of us can't say that. We are always wanting to better ourselves, and that is a good thing, but not if we are doing it because we are unhappy with the way we are. If we want to lose weight to be happier and healthier, that's a good thing, if we want to lose weight to look like that supermodel or because someone said something cruel to us, that is not okay. We need to realize that humanity is flawed. The nose that I have never been happy with is just fine. If I changed my nose I would change my face, and I like my face. Those hours I spend thinking about writing and not actually writing are fine too. I'm usually working a problem out, I'm not being lazy. Those hours I spend laying in bed in the morning doing nothing when I could be doing something, ANYTHING, those hours are fine too. I need that time because I don't know about the rest of you, but I don't allow myself time to rest. In fact I read a friends blog today that was all about resting. Here is the website for that if you too want to read it: https://dearanonymousfriend.wordpress.com/

Well, those are the thoughts I have been working on so far for this year. I'm sure I have more running around in my head, as a writer the thoughts never stop.

I better go, I've got things to do and places to be. Okay, not really, but I do have some things to do.

Good luck to anyone who played the powerball today! 1.5 Billion is a ridiculous amount of money isn't it?